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1
Vogel, Coleen, Ingrid Koch, and Koos Van Zyl. "“A Persistent Truth”—Reflections on Drought Risk Management in Southern Africa." Weather, Climate, and Society 2, no. 1 (January 1, 2010): 9–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2009wcas1017.1.
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Abstract Severe droughts in southern Africa are associated with livelihood impacts, a strain on local economies, and other hardships. Extensive effort has been spent in the past trying to improve responses to periods of extensive drought. There have also been renewed calls for improvements to climate change adaptation by adopting more proactive governance and disaster risk reduction approaches. Few efforts, however, have been made to assess how to learn more from past drought efforts so as to enhance overall resilience to future drought risks. Few have examined the role and contributions of institutions and drought governance, either across spatial scales [from regional (i.e., Southern African Development Community) to national scales (e.g., South Africa) to the very local scale (e.g., Limpopo Province, South Africa)] or across temporal scales (over at least 100 yr). Despite calls for better risk management approaches at all levels, this paper illustrates two points. First, a failure to fully understand, integrate, and learn from past efforts may undermine current and future drought response. Second, state-led drought risk reduction, which remains focused on a financial “bail-out” mentality, with little follow-through on proactive rather than reactive drought responses, is also seriously contributing to the vulnerability of the region to future drought impacts.
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Orimoloye, Israel Ropo, Leocadia Zhou, and Ahmed M. Kalumba. "Drought Disaster Risk Adaptation through Ecosystem Services-Based Solutions: Way Forward for South Africa." Sustainability 13, no. 8 (April 8, 2021): 4132. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su13084132.
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Ecosystem services refer to the direct and indirect benefits to humanity from an ecosystem. The ability to spatially incorporate multiple biophysical environments is crucial to ecosystem services, thus promoting cooperation between science and policy in seeking solutions to global challenges, including drought disasters. Therefore, understanding ecosystem services, for instance, from forest/vegetation in view of contributing to drought disaster risk adaptation is critical to human-nature interactions and proper sustainable conservation thereof. No known study has been done on ecosystem services and their contributions to drought management or other climate adaptation in South Africa. This study aimed at quantifying drought disaster risk adaptation based on ecosystem services in South Africa. It was identified that ecosystem services to society have been directly affected by anthropogenic and natural phenomena, thereby influencing drought severity and its impacts. These impacts and their associated risks are evident globally, including in South Africa. We found out that ecosystems in South Africa have been affected and extremely vulnerable to recurrent natural disasters, such as droughts. To achieve long-term solutions to such drought-related risks and challenges, feedback mechanisms between human-natural and related factors and ecosystem services-based drought adaptation need to be understood and planned. Timely spatiotemporal assessment, planning and management strategies need to be considered to find solutions or ways forward to South Africa in combating drought disasters.
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Makaya, Eugine, Melanie Rohse, Rosie Day, Coleen Vogel, Lyla Mehta, Lindsey McEwen, Sally Rangecroft, and Anne F. Van Loon. "Water governance challenges in rural South Africa: exploring institutional coordination in drought management." Water Policy 22, no. 4 (May 16, 2020): 519–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wp.2020.234.
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Abstract Droughts have severe direct impacts on the livelihoods of rural populations. Thus, the management of water for communal agriculture and water supply should be well coordinated to enhance drought resilience. Notwithstanding the interrelations among water management institutions in South Africa, there are complexities in the way these institutions work together, both in preparation for, and during drought times. In this article, we examine the governance of water resources in South Africa with a view to understanding institutional coordination in drought management at different operational scales. Using a qualitative approach, the roles and relationships between water actors at the local and regional level were analyzed for their adequacy in building local level drought resilience in a village in the Limpopo province, South Africa. Key informant interviews conducted revealed operational drought management challenges that emanate from communication barriers, coordination inconsistences, and undefined, unclear actor roles and responsibilities during disasters. The top-down approach to disaster management, while of some value, currently constrains the effectiveness of the local-level institutions implementing local drought risk reduction efforts. Achieving more successful water and drought governance endeavors could be enhanced by greater and wider engagement with community-based actors and water management institutions.
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du Pisani, L. G., H. J. Fouché, and J. C. Venter. "Assessing rangeland drought in South Africa." Agricultural Systems 57, no. 3 (July 1998): 367–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0308-521x(98)00024-9.
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Mussá, F. E. F., Y. Zhou, S. Maskey, I. Masih, and S. Uhlenbrook. "Groundwater as an emergency source for drought mitigation in the Crocodile River catchment, South Africa." Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions 11, no. 3 (March 6, 2014): 2719–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hessd-11-2719-2014.
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Abstract. Global climate change has received much attention worldwide in the scientific as well as in the political community, indicating that changes in precipitation, extreme droughts and floods may threaten increasingly many regions. Drought is a natural phenomenon that may cause social, economical and environmental damages to the society. In this study, we assess the drought intensity and severity and the groundwater potential to be used as a supplement source of water to mitigate drought impacts in the Crocodile River catchment, a water-stressed sub-catchment of the Incomati River catchment in South Africa. The research methodology consists mainly of three parts. First, the spatial and temporal variation of the meteorological and hydrological drought severity and intensity over the catchment were evaluated. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used to analyse the meteorological drought and the Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) was used for the hydrological drought. Second, the water deficit in the catchment during the drought period was computed using a simple water balance method. Finally, a groundwater model was constructed in order to assess the feasibility of using groundwater as an emergency source for drought impact mitigation. Results show that the meteorological drought severity varies accordingly with the precipitation; the low rainfall areas are more vulnerable to severe meteorological droughts (lower and upper crocodile). Moreover, the most water stressed sub-catchments with high level of water uses but limited storage, such as the Kaap located in the middle catchment and the Lower Crocodile sub-catchments are those which are more vulnerable to severe hydrological droughts. The analysis of the potential groundwater use during droughts showed that a deficit of 97 Mm3 yr−1 could be supplied from groundwater without considerable adverse impacts on the river base flow and groundwater storage. Abstraction simulations for different scenarios of extremely severe droughts reveal that it is possible to use groundwater to cope with the droughts in the catchment. However, local groundwater exploitation in Nelspruit and White River sub-catchment will cause large drawdowns (> 10 m) and high base flow reduction (> 20%). This case study shows that conjunctive water management of groundwater and surface water resources is the necessary to mitigate the impacts of droughts.
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Botai, Joel, Christina Botai, Jaco de Wit, Masinde Muthoni, and Abiodun Adeola. "Analysis of Drought Progression Physiognomies in South Africa." Water 11, no. 2 (February 11, 2019): 299. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w11020299.
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The spatial-temporal variability of drought characteristics and propagation mechanisms in the hydrological cycle is a pertinent topic to policymakers and to the diverse scientific community. This study reports on the analysis of drought characteristics and propagation patterns in the hydrological cycle over South Africa. In particular, the analysis considered daily precipitation and streamflow data spanning from 1985 to 2016, recorded from 74 weather stations, distributed across South Africa and covering the country’s 19 Water Management Areas (WMAs). The results show that all the WMAs experience drought features characterized by an inherent spatial-temporal dependence structure with transition periods categorized into short (1–3 months), intermediate (4–6 months), long (7–12 months) and extended (>12 months) time-scales. Coupled with climate and catchment characteristics, the drought propagation characteristics delineate the WMAs into homogenous zones subtly akin to the broader climatic zones of South Africa, i.e., Savanna, Grassland, Karoo, Fynbos, Forest, and Desert climates. We posit that drought evolution results emanating from the current study provide a new perspective of drought characterization with practical use for the design of drought monitoring, as well as early warning systems for drought hazard preparedness and effective water resources planning and management. Overall, the analysis of drought evolution in South Africa is expected to stimulate advanced drought research topics, including the elusive drought termination typology.
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Mussá, F. E. F., Y. Zhou, S. Maskey, I. Masih, and S. Uhlenbrook. "Groundwater as an emergency source for drought mitigation in the Crocodile River catchment, South Africa." Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 19, no. 2 (February 26, 2015): 1093–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-1093-2015.
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Abstract. Global climate change has received much attention worldwide in the scientific as well as in the political community, indicating that changes in precipitation, extreme droughts and floods may increasingly threaten many regions. Drought is a natural phenomenon that causes social, economical and environmental damage to society. In this study, we assess the drought intensity and severity and the groundwater potential to be used as a supplementary source of water to mitigate drought impacts in the Crocodile River catchment, a water-stressed sub-catchment of the Incomati River catchment in South Africa. The research methodology consists of three parts. First, the spatial and temporal variation of the meteorological and hydrological drought severity and intensity over the catchment were evaluated. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used to analyse the meteorological drought and the Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) was used for the hydrological drought. Second, the water deficit in the catchment during the drought period was computed using a simple water balance method. Finally, a groundwater model was constructed in order to assess the feasibility of using groundwater as an emergency source for drought impact mitigation. Results show that the low-rainfall areas are more vulnerable to severe meteorological droughts (lower and upper crocodile). Moreover, the most water stressed sub-catchments with high level of water uses but limited storage, such as the Kaap located in the middle catchment and the Lower Crocodile sub-catchments, are more vulnerable to severe hydrological droughts. The analysis of the potential groundwater use during droughts showed that a deficit of 97 Mm3 yr−1 could be supplied from groundwater without considerable adverse impacts on the river base flow and groundwater storage. Abstraction simulations for different scenarios of extremely severe droughts reveal that it is possible to use groundwater to cope with the droughts in the catchment. However, local groundwater exploitation in Nelspruit and White River sub-catchment will cause large drawdowns (> 10 m) and high base flow reduction (> 20%). This case study shows that conjunctive water management of groundwater and surface water resources is necessary to mitigate the impacts of droughts.
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Kabanda, Tibangayuka A. "Geographical Variability of Drought in Northern South Africa." Journal of Geography and Geology 9, no. 1 (February 28, 2017): 53. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/jgg.v9n1p53.
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This study focuses on the geographical variation of drought in northern South Africa (hereafter NSA). It assesses seasonal rainfall characteristics to determine drought occurrence and persistence in NSA. Seasonal rainfall data for the period 1960-2009 is used and was obtained from the South Africa Weather Service (SAWS). Rainfall stations in NSA are well distributed, forming a dense network of point-source data samples. Standardised Precipitation Indices (SPIs) are employed to detect drought occurrence and intensity at different locations. Analysis of SPIs with respect to time suggests that the severity of drought results from the accumulation of consecutive dry spells within a rainfall season and sometimes even consecutive dry rainfall seasons. It also shows the intensity and frequency of drought has increased in recent years. The trend towards worsening drought conditions has significant socioeconomic implications for the region and other areas with similar geographical settings.
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Ndlovu, Minenhle Siphesihle, and Molla Demlie. "Assessment of Meteorological Drought and Wet Conditions Using Two Drought Indices Across KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa." Atmosphere 11, no. 6 (June 12, 2020): 623. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/atmos11060623.
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South Africa has been experiencing a series of droughts for the last few years, limiting the availability of water supply in reservoirs and impacting many sectors of the economy. These droughts have affected even the wetter eastern provinces including KwaZulu-Natal. This paper presents the results of analyses and assessment of meteorological drought across KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province of South Africa using two drought indices. The main objective of the study is to understand the changes in rainfall patterns for a period of 48 years (i.e., 1970 to 2017) and identify wet and dry years. The percent of normal precipitation index (PNPI) and rainfall anomaly index (RAI) were used to explore and categorize the wet and dry periods at 18 selected rainfall gauging stations across the province. Mann–Kendall statistics and Sen’s slope were employed on the indices to further understand the trend of drought conditions. The results revealed that 1992 and 2014/15 were the most extremely dry years with 2015 being the driest year over the studied period induced by El Niño. The extremely wet periods were 1987, 1996, and 2000 which have been associated with cyclonic events. Droughts have become more frequent and intense, while wet conditions are less frequent. The drought condition was observed not to be peculiar to one region and to vary from year-to-year. These variations have been associated with global climate drivers including El Niño-southern oscillation (ENSO) and sea surface temperature (SST) conditions. The northern region around Magudu, Hlobane, Vryheid and Dundee were relatively the most affected during periods of extreme drought conditions. Comparative analysis showed that RAI is more robust than PNPI in understanding drought conditions. Thus, it can be applied effectively in Southern Africa in analyzing dry and wet conditions.
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Xulu, Peerbhay, Gebreslasie, and Ismail. "Unsupervised Clustering of Forest Response to Drought Stress in Zululand Region, South Africa." Forests 10, no. 7 (June 26, 2019): 531. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/f10070531.
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Drought limits the production of plantation forests, notably in the drought-prone Zululand region of South Africa. During the last 40 years, the country has faced a series of severe droughts, however that of 2015 stands out as the most extreme and prolonged. The 2015 drought impaired forest productivity and led to widespread tree mortality in this region, but the identification of tree response to drought stress remains uncertain because of its spatial variability. To address this problem, a method that can capture drought patterns and identify trees with similar reactions to drought stress is desired. This could improve the accuracy of detecting trees suffering from drought stress which is key for forest management planning. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the utility of unsupervised mapping approaches in compartments of Eucalyptus trees with similar drought characteristics based on the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and to demonstrate the value of cloud-based Google Earth Engine (GEE) resources for rapid landscape drought monitoring. Our results showed that calculating distances between pixels using three different matrices (Random Forest (RF) proximity, Euclidean and Manhattan) can accurately detect similarities within a dataset. The RF proximity matrix produced the best measures, which were clustered using Wards hierarchical clustering to detect drought with the highest overall accuracy of 87.7%, followed by Manhattan (85.9%) and Euclidean similarity measures (79.9%), with user and producer results between 84.2% to 91.2%, 42.8% to 98.2% and 37.2% to 94.7%, respectively. These results confirm the value of the RF proximity matrix and underscore the capability of automatic unsupervised mapping approaches for monitoring drought stress in tree plantations, as well as the value of using GEE for providing cost effective datasets to resource stricken countries.
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Liu, Wenbin, Fubao Sun, Wee Ho Lim, Jie Zhang, Hong Wang, Hideo Shiogama, and Yuqing Zhang. "Global drought and severe drought-affected populations in 1.5 and 2 °C warmer worlds." Earth System Dynamics 9, no. 1 (March 19, 2018): 267–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-267-2018.
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Abstract. The 2015 Paris Agreement proposed a more ambitious climate change mitigation target on limiting global warming to 1.5 ∘C instead of 2 ∘C above preindustrial levels. Scientific investigations on environmental risks associated with these warming targets are necessary to inform climate policymaking. Based on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) climate models, we present the first risk-based assessment of changes in global drought and the impact of severe drought on populations from additional 1.5 and 2 ∘C warming conditions. Our results highlight the risk of drought on a global scale and in several hotspot regions such as the Amazon, northeastern Brazil, southern Africa and Central Europe at both 1.5 and 2 ∘C global warming relative to the historical period, showing increases in drought durations from 2.9 to 3.2 months. Correspondingly, more total and urban populations would be exposed to severe droughts globally (+132.5 ± 216.2 million and +194.5 ± 276.5 million total population and +350.2 ± 158.8 million and +410.7 ± 213.5 million urban populations in 1.5 and 2 ∘C warmer worlds) and regionally (e.g., East Africa, West Africa and South Asia). Less rural populations (−217.7 ± 79.2 million and −216.2 ± 82.4 million rural populations in 1.5 and 2 ∘C warmer worlds) would be exposed to severe drought globally under climate warming, population growth and especially the urbanization-induced population migration. By keeping global warming at 1.5 ∘C above the preindustrial levels instead of 2 ∘C, there is a decrease in drought risks (i.e., less drought duration, less drought intensity and severity but relatively more frequent drought) and the affected total, urban and rural populations would decrease globally and in most regions. While challenging for both East Africa and South Asia, the benefits of limiting warming to below 1.5 ∘C in terms of global drought risk and impact reduction are significant.
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Theron, Linda, Motlalepule Ruth Mampane, Liesel Ebersöhn, and Angie Hart. "Youth Resilience to Drought: Learning from a Group of South African Adolescents." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 21 (October 28, 2020): 7896. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17217896.
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Exposure to drought is on the increase, also in sub-Saharan Africa. Even so, little attention has been paid to what supports youth resilience to the stressors associated with drought. In response, this article reports a secondary analysis of qualitative data generated in a phenomenological study with 25 South African adolescents (average age 15.6; majority Sepedi-speaking) from a drought-impacted and structurally disadvantaged community. The thematic findings show the importance of personal, relational, and structural resources that fit with youths’ sociocultural context. Essentially, proactive collaboration between adolescents and their social ecologies is necessary to co-advance socially just responses to the challenges associated with drought.
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Robinson, Eugene S., Xi Yang, and Jung-Eun Lee. "Ecosystem Productivity and Water Stress in Tropical East Africa: A Case Study of the 2010–2011 Drought." Land 8, no. 3 (March 22, 2019): 52. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land8030052.
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Characterizing the spatiotemporal patterns of ecosystem responses to drought is important in understanding the impact of water stress on tropical ecosystems and projecting future land cover transitions in the East African tropics. Through the analysis of satellite measurements of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil moisture, rainfall, and reanalysis data, here we characterize the 2010–2011 drought in tropical East Africa. The 2010–2011 drought included the consecutive failure of rainy seasons in October–November–December 2010 and March–April–May 2011 and extended further east and south compared with previous regional droughts. During 2010–2011, SIF, a proxy of ecosystem productivity, showed a concomitant decline (~32% lower gross primary productivity, or GPP, based on an empirical SIF–GPP relationship, as compared to the long-term average) with water stress, expressed by lower precipitation and soil moisture. Both SIF and NDVI showed a negative response to drought, and SIF captured the response to soil moisture with a lag of 16 days, even if it had lower spatial resolution and much smaller energy compared with NDVI, suggesting that SIF can also serve as an early indicator of drought in the future. This work demonstrates the unique characteristics of the 2010–2011 East African drought and the ability of SIF and NDVI to track the levels of water stress during the drought.
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De Kock, W. M., R. C. Blamey, and C. J. C. Reason. "Large Summer Rainfall Events and Their Importance in Mitigating Droughts over the South Western Cape, South Africa." Journal of Hydrometeorology 22, no. 3 (March 2021): 587–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/jhm-d-20-0123.1.
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AbstractAlthough the south Western Cape receives most of its rainfall between May and September, there are substantial rainfall events in some summers. These events are of interest in themselves as well as for their possible role in mitigating the frequent winter droughts that the region suffers from. Most recently, greater Cape Town suffered a devastating drought during 2015–18 known as the Day Zero drought due to the high risk of urban areas running out of piped water supply. Estimated data from the city show that major dam levels in the south Western Cape increased more than 1% in some cases after large rainfall events (LREs) in the summer of 2018/19. This increase is significant as dam levels often decrease by several percent per month during the hot summer. In this study, LREs over the south Western Cape during the summer (October–March) are investigated together with dam level data. Most summer LREs result from atmospheric rivers (ARs) or cutoff lows (COLs). ARs have not been previously studied in the South African region except for one study for winter that showed they are responsible for almost all the heavy rainfall events in the Western Cape. Although COLs are most common in the transition months, they can also occur in midwinter and summer. COLs tend to last longer and cover larger areas than ARs, which typically yield relatively short bursts of intense rainfall mostly concentrated around greater Cape Town. After each summer LRE, average dam levels increase by up to 5%, suggesting they are very important for drought recovery. In particular, summer LREs following the anomalously dry winters of 1980, 1984, 2003, 2004, and 2015–18 played an important role in mitigating those droughts.
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Adisa, Omolola M., Muthoni Masinde, and Joel O. Botai. "Assessment of the Dissimilarities of EDI and SPI Measures for Drought Determination in South Africa." Water 13, no. 1 (January 1, 2021): 82. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w13010082.
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This study examines the (dis)similarity of two commonly used indices Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) computed over accumulation periods 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month (hereafter SPI-1, SPI-3, SPI-6, and SPI-12, respectively) and Effective Drought Index (EDI). The analysis is based on two drought monitoring indicators (derived from SPI and EDI), namely, the Drought Duration (DD) and Drought Severity (DS) across the 93 South African Weather Service’s delineated rainfall districts over South Africa from 1980 to 2019. In the study, the Pearson correlation coefficient dissimilarity and periodogram dissimilarity estimates were used. The results indicate a positive correlation for the Pearson correlation coefficient dissimilarity and a positive value for periodogram of dissimilarity in both the DD and DS. With the Pearson correlation coefficient dissimilarity, the study demonstrates that the values of the SPI-1/EDI pair and the SPI-3/EDI pair exhibit the highest similar values for DD, while the SPI-6/EDI pair shows the highest similar values for DS. Moreover, dissimilarities are more obvious in SPI-12/EDI pair for DD and DS. When a periodogram of dissimilarity is used, the values of the SPI-1/EDI pair and SPI-6/EDI pair exhibit the highest similar values for DD, while SPI-1/EDI displayed the highest similar values for DS. Overall, the two measures show that the highest similarity is obtained in the SPI-1/EDI pair for DS. The results obtainable in this study contribute towards an in-depth knowledge of deviation between the EDI and SPI values for South Africa, depicting that these two drought indices values are replaceable in some rainfall districts of South Africa for drought monitoring and prediction, and this is a step towards the selection of the appropriate drought indices.
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Edossa, Desalegn C., Yali E. Woyessa, and Worku A. Welderufael. "Analysis of Droughts in the Central Region of South Africa and Their Association with SST Anomalies." International Journal of Atmospheric Sciences 2014 (December 25, 2014): 1–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/508953.
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The objective of this study was to characterise meteorological droughts in the Central Region of South Africa using Standardised Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and to examine if there is a relationship between drought and El Niño events. The SPEI was used to quantify the precipitation deficit over time and space across the catchment for the time-scales that are important for planning and management of water resources. Based on 12-month time-scale, the total number of drought events identified in the area using SPEI ranged between 13 and 20 during the period of analysis (1952–1999). Considering the effects of event magnitude and duration as severity parameters, the most severe drought event was identified during 1973 followed by 1995 based on 12-month time-scale. Moreover, it was also found that the number of moderate, severe, and extreme drought events identified by SPEI follows increasing trend with decade during the period of analysis. Results of Spearman’s rank correlation test revealed that the trends exhibited by mild (SPEI-3 and SPEI-6), moderate (SPEI-12), severe (SPEI-12), and extreme (SPEI-3) drought categories are statistically significant at 5% significance level. The study also revealed that drought events in the central region of South Africa are preceded by El Niño events in the tropical Pacific (Nino 3.4) with an average lag time of 8 months between the onsets of the two events. It was found that hydrological drought events in the study area lag behind meteorological drought events with an average lag time of 7.4 months. Findings of this study can be used to forecast drought events in the area for the proper planning and management of water resources.
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Naumann, G., P. Barbosa, L. Garrote, A. Iglesias, and J. Vogt. "Exploring drought vulnerability in Africa: an indicator based analysis to be used in early warning systems." Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 18, no. 5 (May 6, 2014): 1591–604. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-1591-2014.
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Abstract. We propose a composite drought vulnerability indicator (DVI) that reflects different aspects of drought vulnerability evaluated at Pan-African level for four components: the renewable natural capital, the economic capacity, the human and civic resources, and the infrastructure and technology. The selection of variables and weights reflects the assumption that a society with institutional capacity and coordination, as well as with mechanisms for public participation, is less vulnerable to drought; furthermore, we consider that agriculture is only one of the many sectors affected by drought. The quality and accuracy of a composite indicator depends on the theoretical framework, on the data collection and quality, and on how the different components are aggregated. This kind of approach can lead to some degree of scepticism; to overcome this problem a sensitivity analysis was done in order to measure the degree of uncertainty associated with the construction of the composite indicator. Although the proposed drought vulnerability indicator relies on a number of theoretical assumptions and some degree of subjectivity, the sensitivity analysis showed that it is a robust indicator and hence able of representing the complex processes that lead to drought vulnerability. According to the DVI computed at country level, the African countries classified with higher relative vulnerability are Somalia, Burundi, Niger, Ethiopia, Mali and Chad. The analysis of the renewable natural capital component at sub-basin level shows that the basins with high to moderate drought vulnerability can be subdivided into the following geographical regions: the Mediterranean coast of Africa; the Sahel region and the Horn of Africa; the Serengeti and the Eastern Miombo woodlands in eastern Africa; the western part of the Zambezi Basin, the southeastern border of the Congo Basin, and the belt of Fynbos in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The results of the DVI at the country level were compared with drought disaster information from the EM-DAT disaster database. Even if a cause–effect relationship cannot be established between the DVI and the drought disaster database, a good agreement is observed between the drought vulnerability maps and the number of persons affected by droughts. These results are expected to contribute to the discussion on how to assess drought vulnerability and hopefully contribute to the development of drought early warning systems in Africa.
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Naumann, G., P. Barbosa, L. Garrote, A. Iglesias, and J. Vogt. "Exploring drought vulnerability in Africa: an indicator based analysis to inform early warning systems." Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions 10, no. 10 (October 8, 2013): 12217–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hessd-10-12217-2013.
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Abstract. Drought vulnerability is a complex concept that includes both biophysical and socio-economic drivers of drought impact that determine capacity to cope with drought. In order to develop an efficient drought early warning system and to be prepared to mitigate upcoming drought events it is important to understand the drought vulnerability of the affected regions. We propose a composite Drought Vulnerability Indicator (DVI) that reflects different aspects of drought vulnerability evaluated at Pan-African level in four components: the renewable natural capital, the economic capacity, the human and civic resources, and the infrastructure and technology. The selection of variables and weights reflects the assumption that a society with institutional capacity and coordination, as well as with mechanisms for public participation is less vulnerable to drought; furthermore we consider that agriculture is only one of the many sectors affected by drought. The quality and accuracy of a composite indicator depends on the theoretical framework, on the data collection and quality, and on how the different components are aggregated. This kind of approach can lead to some degree of scepticism; to overcome this problem a sensitivity analysis was done in order to measure the degree of uncertainty associated with the construction of the composite indicator. Although the proposed drought vulnerability indicator relies on a number of theoretical assumptions and some degree of subjectivity, the sensitivity analysis showed that it is a robust indicator and hence able of representing the complex processes that lead to drought vulnerability. According to the DVI computed at country level, the African countries classified with higher relative vulnerability are Somalia, Burundi, Niger, Ethiopia, Mali and Chad. The analysis of the renewable natural capital component at sub-basin level shows that the basins with high to moderate drought vulnerability can be subdivided in three main different geographical regions: the Mediterranean coast of Africa; the Sahel region and the Horn of Africa; the Serengeti and the Eastern Miombo woodlands in eastern Africa. Additionally, the western part of the Zambezi basin, the south-eastern border of the Congo basin and the belt of Fynbos in the Western Cape should also be included in this category. The results of the DVI at the country level were compared with drought disasters information from the EM-DAT disaster database. Even if a cause effect relationship cannot be established between the DVI and the drought disaster database, a good agreement is observed between the drought vulnerability maps and the number of persons affected by droughts. These results are a valuable contribution to the discussion on how to assess drought vulnerability and should contribute to the development of drought early warning systems in Africa.
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Nembilwi, Ndamulelo, Hector Chikoore, Edmore Kori, Rendani B. Munyai, and Tshilidzi C. Manyanya. "The Occurrence of Drought in Mopani District Municipality, South Africa: Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation." Climate 9, no. 4 (April 9, 2021): 61. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cli9040061.
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Mopani District Municipality in the northeast of South Africa is largely semi-arid and frequently affected by meteorological droughts. The recent 2015/16 event had devastating impacts on water levels, crop yields, livestock herds and rural livelihoods. We investigated the nature of the drought hazard; its impacts, including vulnerability of rural communities in Mopani District and adaptation strategies they have employed to cope with drought. A mixed methods approach with both quantitative and qualitative datasets was used. The district was divided into two distinct climatic areas: the drier eastern lowveld and the wetter western bushveld. Questionnaires were administered among community members whilst key informant interviews were conducted among relevant government and municipal officials. Climate data was used to characterize historical drought using a Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index whilst vegetation anomaly maps were used to demonstrate impacts. Spatially distinct patterns of drought conditions were evident with harsh and dry conditions towards the east. It was found that nearly half the time there is some form of drought or another in the district mostly linked to the remote El Nino phenomenon. In several areas, rain-fed agriculture is no longer tenable, with a direct impact on rural livelihoods. A Household Vulnerability Index determined variable levels of vulnerability such that different strategies are employed to adapt to drought some of which cause environmental problems. Local government intervention strategies include supply of seeds and fertilisers, providing cheap fodder and supplying water using trucks. The findings of this study contribute to disaster risk reduction efforts in a region that is highly vulnerable to current and future climate-risks.
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Xulu, Sifiso, Kabir Peerbhay, Michael Gebreslasie, and Riyad Ismail. "Drought Influence on Forest Plantations in Zululand, South Africa, Using MODIS Time Series and Climate Data." Forests 9, no. 9 (August 30, 2018): 528. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/f9090528.
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South Africa has a long history of recurrent droughts that have adversely affected its economic performance. The recent 2015 drought has been declared the most serious in 26 years and impaired key agricultural sectors including the forestry sector. Research on the forests’ responses to drought is therefore essential for management planning and monitoring. The effects of the latest drought on the forests in South Africa have not been studied and are uncertain. The study reported here addresses this gap by using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and precipitation data retrieved and processed using the JavaScript code editor in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) and the corresponding normalized difference infrared index (NDII), Palmer drought severity index (PDSI), and El Niño time series data for KwaMbonambi, northern Zululand, between 2002 and 2016. The NDVI and NDII time series were decomposed using the Breaks for Additive Seasonal and Trend (BFAST) method to establish the trend and seasonal variation. Multiple linear regression and Mann–Kendall tests were applied to determine the association of the NDVI and NDII with the climate variables. Plantation trees displayed high NDVI values (0.74–0.78) from 2002 to 2013; then, they decreased sharply to 0.64 in 2015. The Mann–Kendall trend test confirmed a negative significant (p = 0.000353) trend between 2014 and 2015. This pattern was associated with a precipitation deficit and low NDII values during a strong El Niño phase. The PDSI (−2.6) values indicated severe drought conditions. The greening decreased in 2015, with some forest remnants showing resistance, implying that the tree species had varying sensitivity to drought. We found that the plantation trees suffered drought stress during 2015, although it seems that the trees began to recover, as the NDVI signals rose in 2016. Overall, these results demonstrated the effective use of the NDVI- and NDII-derived MODIS data coupled with climatic variables to provide insights into the influence of drought on plantation trees in the study area.
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Naumann, G., E. Dutra, P. Barbosa, F. Pappenberger, F. Wetterhall, and J. Vogt. "Establishing the dominant source of uncertainty in drought indicators." Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions 10, no. 11 (November 7, 2013): 13407–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hessd-10-13407-2013.
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Abstract. Drought monitoring is a key component to mitigate impacts of droughts. Lack of reliable and up-to-date datasets is a common challenge across the Globe. This study investigates different datasets and drought indicators on their capability to improve drought monitoring in Africa. The study was performed for four river basins located in different climatic regions (the Oum er-Rbia in Morocco, the Blue Nile in Eastern Africa, the Upper Niger in Western Africa, and the Limpopo in South-Eastern Africa) as well as the Greater Horn of Africa. The five precipitation datasets compared are the ECMWF ERA – Interim reanalysis, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite monthly rainfall product 3B43, the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre gridded precipitation dataset, the Global Precipitation Climatology Project Global Monthly Merged Precipitation Analyses, and the Climate Prediction Center Merged Analysis of Precipitation. The set of drought indicators used includes the Standardized Precipitation Index, the Standardized Precipitation–Evaporation Index, Soil Moisture Anomalies and Potential Evapotranspiration. A comparison of the annual cycle and monthly precipitation time series shows a good agreement in the timing of the rainy seasons. The main differences between the datasets are in the ability to represent the magnitude of the wet seasons and extremes. Moreover, for the areas affected by drought, all the drought indicators agree on the time of drought onset and recovery although there is disagreement on the extent of the affected area. In regions with limited rain gauge data the estimation of the different drought indicators is characterised by a higher uncertainty. Further comparison suggests that the main source of error in the computation of the drought indicators is the uncertainty in the precipitation datasets rather than the estimation of the distribution parameters of the drought indicators.
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Ballard, Charles. "Drought and Economic Distress: South Africa in the 1800s." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17, no. 2 (1986): 359. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/204770.
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ROBERTS, L. C., L. S. VAN HELDEN, C. A. FOX, F. FIFF, and D. J. VISSER. "Provincial Veterinary Services respond to drought in South Africa." Revue Scientifique et Technique de l'OIE 39, no. 2 (August 1, 2020): 407–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.20506/rst.39.2.3092.
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Mdungela, Nomalanga M., Yonas T. Bahta, and Andries J. Jordaan. "Indicators for economic vulnerability to drought in South Africa." Development in Practice 27, no. 8 (October 9, 2017): 1050–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2017.1361384.
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Botai, Christina, Joel Botai, Jaco de Wit, Katlego Ncongwane, and Abiodun Adeola. "Drought Characteristics over the Western Cape Province, South Africa." Water 9, no. 11 (November 10, 2017): 876. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w9110876.
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Lavery, Charne. "Antarctica and Africa: Narrating alternate futures." Polar Record 55, no. 5 (September 2019): 347–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247419000743.
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AbstractAfrica has been marginalised in the history of Antarctica, a politics of exclusion (with the exception of Apartheid South Africa) reflected unsurprisingly by a dearth of imaginative, cultural and literary engagement. But, in addition to paleontological and geophysical links, Antarctica has increasing interrelationship with Africa’s climactic future. Africa is widely predicted to be the continent worst affected by climate change, and Antarctica and its surrounding Southern Ocean are uniquely implicated as crucial mediators for changing global climate and currents, rainfall patterns, and sea level rise. This paper proposes that there are in fact several ways of imagining the far South from Africa in literary and cultural terms. One is to read against the grain for southern-directed perspectives in existing African literature and the arts, from southern coastlines looking south; another is to reexamine both familiar and new, speculative narratives of African weather – drought, flood and change – for their Antarctic entanglements. In the context of ongoing work on postcolonial Antarctica and calls to decolonise Antarctic studies – such readings can begin to bridge the Antarctica–Africa divide.
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Myeki, Vuyiseka A., and Yonas T. Bahta. "Determinants of Smallholder Livestock Farmers’ Household Resilience to Food Insecurity in South Africa." Climate 9, no. 7 (July 13, 2021): 117. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cli9070117.
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This study identified factors affecting livestock farmers’ agricultural drought resilience to food insecurity in Northern Cape Province, South Africa. Data of 217 smallholder livestock farmers were used in a principal component analysis to estimate the agricultural drought resilience index. The structural equation approach was then applied to assess smallholder livestock farmers’ resilience to food insecurity. The study found that most smallholder livestock farmers (81%) were not resilient to agricultural drought. Assets (β = 0.150), social safety nets (β = 0.001), and adaptive capacity (β = 0.171) indicators positively impacted households’ resilience to food insecurity with 5% significance. Climate change indicators negatively impacted households’ resilience to food insecurity. Two variables were included under climate change, focusing on drought, namely drought occurrence (β = −0.118) and drought intensity (β = −0.021), which had a negative impact on household resilience to food insecurity with 10% significance. The study suggests that smallholder livestock farmers need assistance from the government and various stakeholders to minimize vulnerability and boost their resilience to food insecurity.
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Pamla, Avela, Gladman Thondhlana, and Sheunesu Ruwanza. "Persistent Droughts and Water Scarcity: Households’ Perceptions and Practices in Makhanda, South Africa." Land 10, no. 6 (June 4, 2021): 593. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land10060593.
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Households in many cities worldwide consume substantial amounts of water, but increasing aridity will result in serious water supply challenges in the future. In South Africa, droughts are now a common phenomenon, with severe implications on water supply for urban households. Developing interventions to minimise the impacts of drought requires understanding of users’ perceptions of water scarcity, water use practices, and participation in water conservation practices. Using household surveys across different income groups (low, medium, and high) in Makhanda, South Africa, this study investigates households’ perceptions of water scarcity, water use, and conservation practices as a basis for designing pathways for sustainable water use practices. Results indicate that a substantial proportion of households were aware of water scarcity and attributed it to poor municipal planning rather than drought and wasteful use practices. Households reported good water use behaviour, but wasteful practices (e.g., regular flushing of toilets) were evident. Gender, age, education, and environmental awareness influenced water use practices, but the relationships were generally weak. Households participated in water conservation measures but felt the local municipal authority lagged in addressing water supply challenges. The implications of the study are discussed.
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Perkins, Jeremy Simon. "Take me to the River along the African drought corridor: Adapting to climate change." Botswana Journal of Agriculture and Applied Sciences 14, no. 1 (April 3, 2020): 60–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.37106/bojaas.2020.77.
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This paper brings together a wide range of concepts from climate change predictions, palaeoecology, wildlife ecology and sustainable livelihoods in order to prioritise adaptive management measures that are necessary for the conservation of the African megafauna. Climate change predictions emphasise the severe aridity that will surge into southern Africa later this century and must be contrasted with the relatively wetter conditions in eastern Africa. The evolution of African mammals and their adaptive responses to past episodes of climate change is explained by reference to range shifts and movements along Balinsky’s (1962) ‘drought corridor’ that extends from SW Africa northeastwards to Somalia and then westwards across the Saharan-Sahelian zone. The drought corridor today could potentially extend from Kenya southwestward through to Botswana/South Africa and Namibia, via connectivity corridors linking existing wildlife areas, forming the Kalahari-Rift Valley Transfrontier Conservation Landscape (KALARIVA TFCL). The most promising route along the drought corridor links the Chobe – Linyanti – Kwando river systems of Botswana/Namibia with Luangwa Valley in Northern Zambia, along the Zambezi River via Lake Kariba (Matsudonna and Mana Pools) in Zimbabwe. Malawi poses an absolute barrier to such connectivity and by the turn of this Century runs the risk of confining the area to the south almost entirely to the SW arid adapted fauna and that to the north to water dependent ungulates such as elephants, buffalo and zebra. The key movement corridors are identified in a bid to extend the spatial and temporal scale of conservation planning in order to adapt effectively to climate change. The importance of ‘co-existence’ between wildlife and people is emphasised together with the need for local communities to benefit from sharing the KALARIVA TFCL with African wildlife, via new models of conservation financing and management that reward rural African communities for being the true custodians of the African megafauna.
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Bahta, Y. T., A. Jordaan, and F. Muyambo. "Communal farmers' perception of drought in South Africa: Policy implication for drought risk reduction." International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 20 (December 2016): 39–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2016.10.007.
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Botai, Christina M., Joel O. Botai, Abiodun M. Adeola, Jaco P. de Wit, Katlego P. Ncongwane, and Nosipho N. Zwane. "Drought Risk Analysis in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa: The Copula Lens." Water 12, no. 7 (July 8, 2020): 1938. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w12071938.
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This research study was carried out to investigate the characteristics of drought based on the joint distribution of two dependent variables, the duration and severity, in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. The drought variables were computed from the Standardized Precipitation Index for 6- and 12-month accumulation period (hereafter SPI-6 and SPI-12) time series calculated from the monthly rainfall data spanning the last five decades. In this context, the characteristics of climatological drought duration and severity were based on multivariate copula analysis. Five copula functions (from the Archimedean and Elliptical families) were selected and fitted to the drought duration and severity series in order to assess the dependency measure of the two variables. In addition, Joe and Gaussian copula functions were considered and fitted to the drought duration and severity to assess the joint return periods for the dual and cooperative cases. The results indicate that the dependency measure of drought duration and severity are best described by Tawn copula families. The dependence structure results suggest that the study area exhibited low probability of drought duration and high probability of drought severity. Furthermore, the multivariate return period for the dual case is found to be always longer across all the selected univariate return periods. Based on multivariate analysis, the study area (particularly Buffalo City, OR Tambo and Alfred Zoo regions) is determined to have higher/lower risks in terms of the conjunctive/cooperative multivariate drought risk (copula) probability index. The results of the present study could contribute towards policy and decision making through e.g., formulation of the forward-looking contingent plans for sustainable management of water resources and the consequent applications in the preparedness for and adaptation to the drought risks in the water-linked sectors of the economy.
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Mangani, Robert, Eyob Tesfamariam, Gianni Bellocchi, and Abubeker Hassen. "Modelled impacts of extreme heat and drought on maize yield in South Africa." Crop and Pasture Science 69, no. 7 (2018): 703. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/cp18117.
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This study assessed two versions of the crop model CropSyst (i.e. EMS, existing; MMS, modified) for their ability to simulate maize (Zea mays L.) yield in South Africa. MMS algorithms explicitly account for the impact of extreme weather events (droughts, heat waves, cold shocks, frost) on leaf development and yield formation. The case study of this research was at an experimental station near Johannesburg where both versions of the model were calibrated and validated by using field data collected from 2004 to 2008. The comparison of EMS and MMS showed considerable difference between the two model versions during extreme drought and heat events. MMS improved grain-yield prediction by ~30% compared with EMS, demonstrating a better ability to capture the behaviour of stressed crops under a range of conditions. MMS also showed a greater variability in response when both versions were forced with scenarios of projected climate change, with increased severity of drought and increased temperature conditions at the horizons 2030 and 2050, which could drive decreased maize yield. Yield was even lower with MMS (8 v. 11 t ha–1 for EMS) at the horizon 2050, relative to the baseline scenario (~13 t ha–1 at the horizon 2000). Modelling solutions accounting for the impact of extreme weather events can be seen as a promising tool for supporting agricultural management strategies and policy decisions in South Africa and globally.
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Spinoni, Jonathan, Paulo Barbosa, Edoardo Bucchignani, John Cassano, Tereza Cavazos, Jens H. Christensen, Ole B. Christensen, et al. "Future Global Meteorological Drought Hot Spots: A Study Based on CORDEX Data." Journal of Climate 33, no. 9 (May 1, 2020): 3635–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-19-0084.1.
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AbstractTwo questions motivated this study: 1) Will meteorological droughts become more frequent and severe during the twenty-first century? 2) Given the projected global temperature rise, to what extent does the inclusion of temperature (in addition to precipitation) in drought indicators play a role in future meteorological droughts? To answer, we analyzed the changes in drought frequency, severity, and historically undocumented extreme droughts over 1981–2100, using the standardized precipitation index (SPI; including precipitation only) and standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index (SPEI; indirectly including temperature), and under two representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). As input data, we employed 103 high-resolution (0.44°) simulations from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX), based on a combination of 16 global circulation models (GCMs) and 20 regional circulation models (RCMs). This is the first study on global drought projections including RCMs based on such a large ensemble of RCMs. Based on precipitation only, ~15% of the global land is likely to experience more frequent and severe droughts during 2071–2100 versus 1981–2010 for both scenarios. This increase is larger (~47% under RCP4.5, ~49% under RCP8.5) when precipitation and temperature are used. Both SPI and SPEI project more frequent and severe droughts, especially under RCP8.5, over southern South America, the Mediterranean region, southern Africa, southeastern China, Japan, and southern Australia. A decrease in drought is projected for high latitudes in Northern Hemisphere and Southeast Asia. If temperature is included, drought characteristics are projected to increase over North America, Amazonia, central Europe and Asia, the Horn of Africa, India, and central Australia; if only precipitation is considered, they are found to decrease over those areas.
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Orlowsky, B., and S. I. Seneviratne. "Elusive drought: uncertainty in observed trends and short- and long-term CMIP5 projections." Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions 9, no. 12 (December 18, 2012): 13773–803. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hessd-9-13773-2012.
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Abstract. Recent years have seen a number of severe droughts in different regions around the world, causing agricultural and economic losses, famines and migration. Despite their devastating consequences, the Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI) of these events lies within the range of internal climate variability, which we estimate from simulations from the 5th phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). In terms of drought magnitude, regional trends of SPI over the last decades remain mostly inconclusive in observations and CMIP5 simulations, although Soil Moisture Anomalies (SMAs) in CMIP5 simulations hint at increased drought in a few regions (e.g. the Mediterranean, Central America/Mexico, the Amazon, North-East Brazil and South Africa). Also for the future, projections of meteorological (SPI) and agricultural (SMA) drought in CMIP5 display large uncertainties over all time frames, generally impeding trend detection. Analogue analyses of the frequencies rather than magnitudes of future drought display, however, more robust signal-to-noise ratios with detectable trends towards more frequent drought until the end of the 21st century in the Mediterranean, South Africa and Central America/Mexico. Other present-day hot spots are projected to become less drought-prone, or to display unsignificant changes in drought occurrence. A separation of different sources of uncertainty in drought projections reveals that for the near term, internal climate variability is the dominant source, while the formulation of Global Climate Models (GCMs) generally becomes the dominant source of uncertainty by the end of the 21st century, especially for agricultural (soil moisture) drought. In comparison, the uncertainty in Green-House Gas (GHG) concentrations scenarios is negligible for most regions. These findings stand in contrast to respective analyses for a heat wave indicator, for which GHG concentrations scenarios constitute the main source of uncertainty. Our results highlight the inherent difficulty of drought quantification and the uncertainty of drought projections. However, high uncertainty should not be equated with low drought risk, since potential scenarios include large drought increases in key agricultural and ecosystem regions.
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Turton, Anthony. "South Africa and the drought that exposed a young democracy." Water Policy 18, S2 (December 1, 2016): 210–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wp.2016.020.
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South Africa is a young democracy currently going through a crisis of leadership. The worst drought in recorded history has played out at regional level but against the backdrop of complex political dynamics. The government has lost significant capacity at the technical level, largely the result of political priorities driven by the need to decolonise society and the institutions of higher learning. This has manifest in the water sector as systemic failures of key instrumentation systems, rendering the El Niño event invisible until it hit. This case study of the El Niño event shows that drought management is embedded within a broader political process and is not simply a technical management issue. The Vaal River system sustains 60% of the national economy and 45% of the total population of the country, but water security in this system has been placed at risk because of political dynamics.
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Phiri, Darius, Pierre Ackerman, Brand Wessels, Ben du Toit, Marie Johansson, Harald Säll, Sven-Olof Lundqvist, and Thomas Seifert. "Biomass equations for selected drought-tolerant eucalypts in South Africa." Southern Forests: a Journal of Forest Science 77, no. 4 (July 3, 2015): 255–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.2989/20702620.2015.1055542.
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Findell, Kirsten L., and Thomas L. Delworth. "Impact of Common Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies on Global Drought and Pluvial Frequency." Journal of Climate 23, no. 3 (February 1, 2010): 485–503. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2009jcli3153.1.
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Abstract Climate model simulations run as part of the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) Drought Working Group initiative were analyzed to determine the impact of three patterns of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies on drought and pluvial frequency and intensity around the world. The three SST forcing patterns include a global pattern similar to the background warming trend, a pattern in the Pacific, and a pattern in the Atlantic. Five different global atmospheric models were forced by fixed SSTs to test the impact of these SST anomalies on droughts and pluvials relative to a climatologically forced control run. The five models generally yield similar results in the locations of drought and pluvial frequency changes throughout the annual cycle in response to each given SST pattern. In all of the simulations, areas with an increase in the mean drought (pluvial) conditions tend to also show an increase in the frequency of drought (pluvial) events. Additionally, areas with more frequent extreme events also tend to show higher intensity extremes. The cold Pacific anomaly increases drought occurrence in the United States and southern South America and increases pluvials in Central America and northern and central South America. The cold Atlantic anomaly increases drought occurrence in southern Central America, northern South America, and central Africa and increases pluvials in central South America. The warm Pacific and Atlantic anomalies generally lead to reversals of the drought and pluvial increases described with the corresponding cold anomalies. More modest impacts are seen in other parts of the world. The impact of the trend pattern is generally more modest than that of the two other anomaly patterns.
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Matlou, Ringetani, Yonas T. Bahta, Enoch Owusu-Sekyere, and Henry Jordaan. "Impact of Agricultural Drought Resilience on the Welfare of Smallholder Livestock Farming Households in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa." Land 10, no. 6 (May 27, 2021): 562. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land10060562.
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Recurring agricultural droughts are of concern to smallholder livestock farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study determined the impact of agricultural drought resilience on smallholder livestock farming households’ welfare in the Frances Baard District Municipality (FBDM), in Northern Cape Province of South Africa. Interviews, more specifically survey interviews, were conducted with 207 smallholder livestock farmers. We used compensation variation, resilience index and linear regression models to analyse the data. The findings indicate that smallholder farmers who received drought relief support saw an improvement in their welfare. However, the welfare improvements varied across respondents and different gender categories, with males having higher welfare improvements relative to females. The study also found that economic capital, social capital, human capital and natural capital substantially affected the welfare of smallholder farmers. Furthermore, the study revealed that the smallholder farmers had a moderate agricultural drought resilience index, but low natural resilience capital. The study recommends that governments and non-governmental policymakers aiming to improve the welfare of smallholder farmers should focus on building their economic, social, human and capital resource bases. In this way, the smallholder farmers will be resilient in a time of climatic shock.
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Schwarz, Maximilian, Tobias Landmann, Natalie Cornish, Karl-Friedrich Wetzel, Stefan Siebert, and Jonas Franke. "A Spatially Transferable Drought Hazard and Drought Risk Modeling Approach Based on Remote Sensing Data." Remote Sensing 12, no. 2 (January 9, 2020): 237. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs12020237.
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Drought adversely affects vegetation conditions and agricultural production and consequently the food security and livelihood situation of the often most vulnerable communities. In spite of recent advances in modeling drought risk and impact, coherent and explicit information on drought hazard, vulnerability and risk is still lacking over wider areas. In this study, a spatially explicit drought hazard, vulnerability, and risk modeling framework was investigated for agricultural land, grassland and shrubland areas. The developed drought hazard model operates on a higher spatial resolution than most available drought models while also being scalable to other regions. Initially, a logistic regression model was developed to predict drought hazard for rangelands and croplands in the USA. The drought hazard model was cross-verified for the USA using the United States Drought Monitor (USDM). The comparison of the model with the USDM showed a good spatiotemporal agreement, using visual interpretation. Subsequently, the explicit and accurate USA model was transferred and calibrated for South Africa and Zimbabwe, where drought vulnerability and drought risk were assessed in combination with drought hazard. The drought hazard model used time series crop yields data from the Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database (FAOSTAT) and biophysical predictors from satellite remote sensing (SPI, NDVI, NDII, LST, albedo). A McFadden’s Pseudo R² value of 0.17 for the South African model indicated a good model fit. The plausibility of the drought hazard model results in southern Africa was evaluated by using regional climate patterns, published drought reports and a visual comparison to a global drought risk model and food security classification data. Drought risk and vulnerability were assessed for southern Africa and could also be spatially explicit mapped showing, for example, lower drought vulnerability and risk over irrigated areas. The innovative aspect of the presented drought hazard model is that it can be applied to other countries at a global scale, since it only uses globally available data sets and therefore can be easily modified to account for country-specific characteristics. At the same time, it can capture regional drought conditions through a higher resolution than other existing global drought hazard models. This model addressed the gap between global drought models, that cannot spatially and temporally explicitly capture regional drought effects, and sub-regional drought models that may be spatially explicit but not spatially transferable. Since we used globally available and spatially consistent data sets (both as predictors and response variables), the approach of this study can potentially be used globally to enhance existing modelling routines, drought intervention strategies and preparedness measures.
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Baudoin, Marie-Ange, Coleen Vogel, Kirsty Nortje, and Myra Naik. "Living with drought in South Africa: lessons learnt from the recent El Niño drought period." International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 23 (August 2017): 128–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2017.05.005.
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Orlowsky, B., and S. I. Seneviratne. "Elusive drought: uncertainty in observed trends and short- and long-term CMIP5 projections." Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 17, no. 5 (May 7, 2013): 1765–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-1765-2013.
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Abstract. Recent years have seen a number of severe droughts in different regions around the world, causing agricultural and economic losses, famines and migration. Despite their devastating consequences, the Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI) of these events lies within the general range of observation-based SPI time series and simulations from the 5th phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). In terms of magnitude, regional trends of SPI over the last decades remain mostly inconclusive in observation-based datasets and CMIP5 simulations, but Soil Moisture Anomalies (SMAs) in CMIP5 simulations hint at increased drought in a few regions (e.g., the Mediterranean, Central America/Mexico, the Amazon, North-East Brazil and South Africa). Also for the future, projections of changes in the magnitude of meteorological (SPI) and soil moisture (SMA) drought in CMIP5 display large spreads over all time frames, generally impeding trend detection. However, projections of changes in the frequencies of future drought events display more robust signal-to-noise ratios, with detectable trends towards more frequent drought before the end of the 21st century in the Mediterranean, South Africa and Central America/Mexico. Other present-day hot spots are projected to become less drought-prone, or display non-significant changes in drought occurrence. A separation of different sources of uncertainty in projections of meteorological and soil moisture drought reveals that for the near term, internal climate variability is the dominant source, while the formulation of Global Climate Models (GCMs) generally becomes the dominant source of spread by the end of the 21st century, especially for soil moisture drought. In comparison, the uncertainty from Green-House Gas (GHG) concentrations scenarios is negligible for most regions. These findings stand in contrast to respective analyses for a heat wave index, for which GHG concentrations scenarios constitute the main source of uncertainty. Our results highlight the inherent difficulty of drought quantification and the considerable likelihood range of drought projections, but also indicate regions where drought is consistently found to increase. In other regions, wide likelihood range should not be equated with low drought risk, since potential scenarios include large drought increases in key agricultural and ecosystem regions.
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Abubakar, Hadisu B., Solomon W. Newete, and Mary C. Scholes. "Drought Characterization and Trend Detection Using the Reconnaissance Drought Index for Setsoto Municipality of the Free State Province of South Africa and the Impact on Maize Yield." Water 12, no. 11 (October 26, 2020): 2993. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w12112993.
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The reconnaissance drought index (RDI) for the Setsoto municipality of the Free State province in South Africa was calculated for the period between 1985 and 2019 at 3 month (October–December), 6 month (October–March), and 12 month (October–September) intervals. Rainfall and minimum and maximum temperature data from four weather stations (Clocolan, Ficksburg, Marquard, and Senekal) were used for this study to characterize drought using “DrinC” software together with the Mann Kendall test with Sen’s slope to detect drought trends and the rate of change. Extreme, severe, and moderate droughts were recorded for all the stations, with RDIs ranging from −3.6 to −1.0 at different temporal scales. The years 1991, 1994, 2006, 2011, and 2015 were highlighted using the RDI 3, 6, and 12 month calculations. Results showed that the yield decreased either in the year of the drought or in the subsequent year, due to the exact timing of the low-rainfall events in the season and soil moisture storage. Yields were low, on average 2.5 tons ha−1 year−1, with high variability. Optimal growing conditions are essential in the early part of the season, October–December, for maximizing yield; if droughts are experienced at this time then the yield is more greatly impacted than if the droughts occur later in the season. Spatial analysis shows a large variability of drought patterns across the Municipality, over the years, with the 3 month RDI values giving a more detailed picture of this variability than the 6 and 12 month RDI values.
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Mare, Frikkie, Yonas T. Bahta, and Walter Van Niekerk. "The impact of drought on commercial livestock farmers in South Africa." Development in Practice 28, no. 7 (August 10, 2018): 884–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2018.1493091.
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Nangombe, Shingirai, Tianjun Zhou, Lixia Zhang, and Wenxia Zhang. "Attribution Of The 2018 October–December Drought Over South Southern Africa." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 101, no. 1 (January 1, 2020): S135—S140. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/bams-d-19-0179.1.
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Vogel, Coleen, and David Olivier. "Re-imagining the potential of effective drought responses in South Africa." Regional Environmental Change 19, no. 6 (August 9, 2018): 1561–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10113-018-1389-4.
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Araujo, Julio A., Babatunde J. Abiodun, and Olivier Crespo. "Impacts of drought on grape yields in Western Cape, South Africa." Theoretical and Applied Climatology 123, no. 1-2 (December 24, 2014): 117–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00704-014-1336-3.
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Orimoloye, I. R., O. O. Ololade, S. P. Mazinyo, A. M. Kalumba, O. Y. Ekundayo, E. T. Busayo, A. A. Akinsanola, and W. Nel. "Spatial assessment of drought severity in Cape Town area, South Africa." Heliyon 5, no. 7 (July 2019): e02148. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02148.
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Gerdener, Helena, Olga Engels, and Jürgen Kusche. "A framework for deriving drought indicators from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)." Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 24, no. 1 (January 16, 2020): 227–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-227-2020.
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Abstract. Identifying and quantifying drought in retrospective is a necessity for better understanding drought conditions and the propagation of drought through the hydrological cycle and eventually for developing forecast systems. Hydrological droughts refer to water deficits in surface and subsurface storage, and since these are difficult to monitor at larger scales, several studies have suggested exploiting total water storage data from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite gravity mission to analyze them. This has led to the development of GRACE-based drought indicators. However, it is unclear how the ubiquitous presence of climate-related or anthropogenic water storage trends found within GRACE analyses masks drought signals. Thus, this study aims to better understand how drought signals propagate through GRACE drought indicators in the presence of linear trends, constant accelerations, and GRACE-specific spatial noise. Synthetic data are constructed and existing indicators are modified to possibly improve drought detection. Our results indicate that while the choice of the indicator should be application-dependent, large differences in robustness can be observed. We found a modified, temporally accumulated version of the Zhao et al. (2017) indicator particularly robust under realistic simulations. We show that linear trends and constant accelerations seen in GRACE data tend to mask drought signals in indicators and that different spatial averaging methods required to suppress the spatially correlated GRACE noise affect the outcome. Finally, we identify and analyze two droughts in South Africa using real GRACE data and the modified indicators.
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Raal, P. A. "Ecology and population biology of Euphorbia perangusta (Euphorbiaceae) in the Transvaal, South Africa." Bothalia 18, no. 1 (October 23, 1988): 105–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/abc.v18i1.991.
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The conservation status of Euphorbia perangusta R. A. Dyer, an endangered plant restricted to the Marico District of the Transvaal, South Africa, and adjoining parts of Bophuthatswana was determined. The distribution, habitat and population dynamics of E. perangusta are discussed. The monitoring of the largest known population has revealed that this population has declined rapidly since the onset of a drought in 1983. The major cause of this decline appears to be the destruction of the plants by porcupines which feed on E. perangusta during droughts. It appears that, during droughts, E. perangusta is restricted to rocky ridges because there is an increase in porcupine damage on more accessible populations. The species is also subjected to other factors which reduce flower formation in a large proportion of plants. If these factors continue to operate, the species could become extinct in the near future. Conservation recommendations are discussed.
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Zhao, Haigen, and Yanfei Ma. "Evaluating the Drought-Monitoring Utility of Four Satellite-Based Quantitative Precipitation Estimation Products at Global Scale." Remote Sensing 11, no. 17 (August 26, 2019): 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs11172010.
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This study simultaneously analyzed and evaluated the meteorological drought-monitoring utility of the following four satellite-based, quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) products: the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis 3B43V7 (TRMM-3B43), the Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station (CHIRPS), the Climate Prediction Center Morphing Technique gauge-satellite blended product (CMORPH-BLD), and the Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks-Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR). Data from 2000 to 2016 was used at global scale. The global Climate Research Unit (CRU) Version 4.02 was used as reference data to assess QPE products. The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) drought index was chosen as an example to evaluate the drought utility of four QPE products. The results indicate that CHIRPS has the best performance in Europe, Oceania, and Africa; the PERSIANN-CDR has the best performance in North America, South America, and Asia; the CMORPH-BLD has the worst statistical indices in all continents. Although four QPE products showed satisfactory performance for most of the world according to SPEI statistics, poor drought monitoring ability occurred in Southeast Asia, Central Africa, the Tibetan plateau, the Himalayas, and Amazonia. The PERSIANN-CDR achieves the best performance of the four QPE products in most regions except for Africa; CHIRPS and TRMM-3B43 have comparable performances. According to the spatial probability of detection (POD) and false alarm ratio (FAR) of the SPEI, more than 50% of all drought events cannot be accurately identified by QPE products in regions with sparse gauge distribution. In other regions, such as the southeastern USA, southeastern China, and South Africa, QPE products capture more than 75% of drought events. Temporally, all datasets (except for CMORPH-BLD) can detect all typical drought events, namely, in the southeastern US in 2007, western Europe in 2003, Kenya in 2006, and Central Asia in 2008. The study concludes that CHIRPS and TRMM-3B43 can be used as near-real-time drought monitoring techniques whereas PERSIANN-CDR might be more suitable for long-term historical drought analysis.